Taiwan Vote Sparks Concerns From Beijing to Washington Candidate who favors distancing island from China leads in polls for Saturday election By Jeremy Page See note please
http://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-vote-sparks-concerns-from-beijing-to-washington-1452745057
Taiwan was betrayed by Nixon/Kissinger and then Carter who all bowed to Beijing’s demands for the “one China policy.” Carter infamously implemented the betrayal by removing the embassy in Taipei, and transferring it to mainland China….Taiwan is an economic success and was a staunch ally during the Cold War. This is another instance of appeasement of tyrants at the expense of allies which has become a sad part of our foreign policy….rsk
TAIPEI—The widely expected election victory this week of an independence-leaning candidate as Taiwan’s president is injecting new uncertainty to the island’s fraught ties with China and adding a potential headache for Washington.
Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, holds a substantial lead in most polls ahead of Saturday’s election on the island of 23 million people that Beijing regards as its territory. The vote follows nearly eight years of tightening relations between Taiwan and China under Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, whom critics say has been too accommodating of Beijing’s interests at the expense of the island’s deteriorating economy.
Ms. Tsai’s party, known as the DPP, supports Taiwan’s formal independence from China, while Mr. Ma’s Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, doesn’t. Though Ms. Tsai has pledged not to provoke Beijing, her elevation poses a challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has promoted a vision of a strong, politically unified China.
A change in Taiwan’s government also would further complicate the region’s strained security picture. After years of building up its military, Beijing is increasingly asserting control over disputed territories in the East China Sea and South China Sea, alarming Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, which have turned to Washington for support.
The U.S. is reluctant to see its ties with Taiwan—once a Cold War ally—become another irritant in relations with Beijing. American officials have refrained from public comment on the election while quietly pressing all sides to avoid unilateral, provocative actions, said people familiar with the matter. But there are concerns in Washington that Taiwan could become a flashpoint again in China-U. S. relations if Ms. Tsai wins and cannot find a mutually acceptable formula with mainland China.
Though Taiwan has been governed separately from the mainland since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government fled there in 1949 following its defeat by Mao Zedong’s Communists in a civil war, Beijing has never dropped threats to retake the island by force if it moves toward formal independence.
Commercial and transport links have soared in the last eight years under Mr. Ma, who advocated closer Taiwanese relations with China to bolster the economy and to gain a greater role for the island in international affairs. Mr. Ma’s gambit led to talks with Mr. Xi in Singapore in November, in the first meeting between leaders of the two sides since 1949.
Chinese officials have avoided making public statements on the election, while conferring with experts on a strategy to deal with a Tsai government, say people familiar with the process.
In 1996, China fired missiles into nearby waters in a failed attempt to deter voters from electing another independence-minded candidate, prompting the U.S. sent two aircraft carrier groups into the Taiwan Strait. Such a response from Beijing is highly unlikely today.
Rather, Chinese experts say China would begin to impose economic costs on Taiwan if, by Ms. Tsai’s inauguration in May, she didn’t move closer to acknowledging that Taiwan and the mainland belong to “One China”—a rhetorical construct demanded by Beijing. One option might be to limit the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan, especially to DPP-held constituencies.
“Maybe not everybody in Taiwan has felt the benefits of the mainland’s recent policies,” said Li Zhenguang, a professor at Beijing Union University’s Institute of Taiwan Studies. “If relations deteriorate, however, everyone in Taiwan will clearly feel the economic vacuum.”
The Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles relations with the island, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Tsai, a 59-year-old former law professor, has tried to reassure Taiwanese voters that she would maintain the status quo, while stopping short of meeting Beijing’s demand to embrace “One China.”
“I will not provoke, or do anything unexpected,” she said in a televised address last week.
Ms. Tsai has campaigned principally on a pledge to revitalize the economy, addressing concerns among many of Taiwan’s 23 million people about the hollowing out of local industry as jobs and businesses move to the mainland.
“Four years on, folks, is everyone at ease? Is our economy relatively stable? Is our country relatively stable?” she asked farmers in a campaign stop this week., according to an official transcript.
Disaffected voters, especially young ones struggling to find jobs and affordable housing, have rallied behind Ms. Tsai. In 2014, a trade-in-services pact with China prompted student-led protesters to occupy Taiwan’s parliament for the first time, marking a political coming-of-age for a new generation of activists.
The KMT says Ms. Tsai would end the rapprochement with Beijing, destabilizing Taiwan and the region. Last week, some 200,000 people turned out for a rally in the capital, Taipei, to support the KMT candidate, Eric Chu, a big city mayor.
The latest opinion poll, from Taiwan’s bipartisan Cross-Strait Policy Association, showed Ms. Tsai with 45% of voter support and Mr. Chu, 16%. Third-party candidate James Soong polled just below Mr. Chu.
Many pollsters also predict a that the DPP could also win parliamentary elections on Saturday, either outright or in a coalition, wresting control of the legislature away from the KMT for the first time since 1949.
“The mainland is quite fearful that the KMT will never recover,” said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“I think there’s potential for a fundamental rethink in China about why its policies are not achieving its goals,” she said. “The question is what the mainland’s bottom line is going to be in terms of the assurances it wants from Tsai.”
—Jenny W. Hsu in Hong Kong and Felicia Schwartz in Washington contributed to this article.
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